Retroreflective sheeting has long been used to improve the night time visibility (or “conspicuity”) of articles and vehicles. This sheeting, which was first developed by Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, St. Paul, Minn. (“3M”), has greatly improved the night time visibility of trucks and has helped prevent countless dangerous accidents.
In certain parts of the world this life-saving sheeting is now mandated by local or national governmental bodies. Often the local governmental body will pass regulations that specify, for example, precisely how much of a truck length should be delineated with the sheeting, as well as other requirements. For example, in the United States a regulation specifies sheeting shape, mounting requirements and even provides a spacing allowance between retroreflective segments. Other jurisdictions have different regulations. Unfortunately, however, the applier may not correctly apply the sheeting, for example by miscalculating the spacing requirements for their particular jurisdiction. In such cases the delineation will have to be corrected, often at considerable cost.
Also, certain types of vehicles have siding that makes it difficult to use the most cost-efficient sheeting. For example, certain canvas-sided trucks would benefit if the generally more common and less costly “rigid-type” of retroreflective sheeting could be used. Unfortunately, however, the flexible nature of the canvas siding does not work well with the more rigid-types of sheeting and the user is left to use a more costly “flexible-type” of sheeting.
From the foregoing, it will be appreciated that what is needed in the art is improved sheeting for article and vehicle conspicuity programs. Such sheeting and methods for preparing and using the same are disclosed and claimed herein.